News

CUREator BioTech Incubator Grants $1.23M Top-Up Funding to High-Performing Participants

September 4, 2025

Melbourne, Australia, 4 September 2025 – CUREator, the Brandon BioCatalyst biotech Incubator, today announced $1.23 million in top-up funding for six high-performing participants from their Preclinical and Minimising Antimicrobial Resistance Streams.

CUREator top-up funding was awarded through a competitive process by each stream’s Investment Review Committee, based on the progress made with initial project funding and the strength of their proposed top-up plans.

From the Preclinical stream, $668,710 has been awarded to four pre-clinical companies thanks to funding from the Australian Federal Government’s Medical Research Future Fund Early-Stage Translation and Commercialisation Support (ESTAC) grant.

These non-dilutive grants are in addition to the $2.5 million awarded to these biotechs in previous funding rounds.

Frontier Inflammasome Therapeutics (small molecule inhibitors for inflammatory lung and skin conditions), RAGE Biotech (inhaled RNA therapy for chronic lung disease), Cincera Therapeutics (novel drug treatments for fibrotic disease), and xCystence Bio (new class of treatments for polycystic kidney disease) are pioneering targeted therapies for people living with inflammatory and fibrotic conditions of the skin, kidneys and lungs.

xCystence Bio Project Lead Prof Ian Smyth, said: “Support from the CUREator program has been instrumental in enabling us to found xCystence Bio and in supporting the onward development of a new class of therapeutics to treat Polycystic Kidney Disease, a disease of significant unmet clinical need.”

From the Minimising Antimicrobial Resistance Stream, $570,000 has been awarded to two projects thanks to funding from Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO. These non-dilutive grants are in addition to the $930,000 awarded to these biotechs in the first funding round.

CSIRO’s Professor Branwen Morgan said: “We need to protect and preserve the power of our life- saving antibiotics. To achieve this it’s important, we reduce the need for antibiotics – through infection prevention that includes appropriate vaccination – as well as by ensuring the right antibiotic for the right infection is used at the right time to optimise its effectiveness. CSIRO is delighted to support Spritz-OM and Clinical Branches on their research translation journey that ultimately will help mitigate the impact of antimicrobial resistance on society.”

Awardees are Clinical Branches, a SaaS platform that helps clinicians make better antimicrobial prescribing decisions by integrating patient data with clinical pathways and Spritz-OM, a research program which is developing a nasal probiotic therapy to prevent childhood ear infections and reduce the (over)use of antibiotics.

Pharmacist turned software developer John Shanks, co-founder of Kraken Coding, said: ‘The CSIRO funded CUREator grant enabled us to prove the demand for an accessible antimicrobial prescribing tool and we’ll be using the top-up funding to build a mobile version to give guidance with context directly at the point of treatment, transforming emergency and rural care.’

CUREator’s unique approach, that delivers funding in tranches based on milestone attainment, enables the redistribution of funds from projects with unmet milestones to supplement top-up funding rounds for high performers.

Dr Chris Nave, Brandon BioCatalyst Co-Founder and Managing Director, said: “CUREator’s top-up funding model is designed to accelerate high-performing projects. By providing timely, targeted follow up funding, CUREator helps bridge the gap between early-stage innovation and investor- ready progress, ensuring promising biotechs can maintain momentum.”

Australian research continues to demonstrate strong global therapeutic potential, and programs like CUREator, with its competitive Top-Up Funding mechanism that reallocates funds from projects not meeting milestones to those exceeding them, are becoming essential infrastructure for supporting biotechs with commercial promise in Australia.

– ENDS –

Media contacts – Australia

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+61 489 198 435 and brandoncapital@iconagency.com.au

About Brandon BioCatalyst and Brandon Capital

Brandon Capital is Australasia's leading life science venture capital firm, with a solid global presence supported by key partnerships and team members across the US and UK. Brandon Capital supports life science companies from early-stage seed investment to expansion capital from proof-of-concept to commercialisation. Managed by Brandon Capital, Brandon BioCatalyst is a unique collaboration of over 50 leading medical research institutes, investors, and government united by a single purpose: progressing the next generation of medical therapies and technology that improve health and save lives.

www.brandoncapital.vc | www.brandonbiocatalyst.com

About CUREator

CUREator is a national biotechnology incubator by Brandon BioCatalyst that supports Australian biomedical research and innovation development. Funded by the Medical Research Future Fund and Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, CUREator provides grant funding programs for opportunities spanning from discovery to clinical development. Funding is provided like an investor with clear milestone-driven tranches to achieve key value-adding and de-risking development milestones. CUREator works closely with project teams to guide them through the early development phase, offering scientific and commercial expertise and networks to support projects meeting key outcomes.

For more information about CUREator, visit: https://brandonbiocatalyst.com/cureator/

About CSIRO

CSIRO is Australia’s national science agency and innovation catalyst. We solve the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology. Our collaborative research turns science into solutions for food security and quality; clean energy and resources; health and wellbeing; resilient and valuable environments; innovative industries; and a secure Australia and region.

Preclinical Stream Awardees

• xCystence Bio
• VIC
• Top up Funding Amount: $250,000
• Funding stream: Preclinical
• Therapeutic Area: New class of drugs for the treatment of Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD)

• Frontier Inflammasome Therapeutics
• QLD
• Top up Funding Amount: $175,000
• Funding stream: Preclinical
• Therapeutic Area: Novel small molecule drugs for inflammatory conditions of the lungs and skin

• RAGE Biotech
• VIC
• Top up Funding Amount: $113,710
• Funding stream: Preclinical
• Therapeutic Area: Inhaled therapeutics targeting the Receptor for Advanced Glycation End-products (RAGE) for the treatment of chronic lung disease

• Cincera
• VIC
• Top up Funding Amount: $130,000
• Funding stream: Preclinical
• Therapeutic Area: Novel small molecule drugs for the treatment of fibrotic diseases

Frontier Inflammasome Therapeutics is pioneering first-in-class therapeutics to target inflammatory pathways implicated in a range of skin and lung conditions. Initial funding enabled them to develop proprietary drug screening assays to identify and select active compounds, and the top-up funding support will accelerate the critical optimisation and validation of these breakthrough drug candidates.

Rage Biotech is re-thinking how chronic lung disease is treated by developing a nebulised splice-switching oligonucleotide (SSO) therapy that targets the Receptor for Advanced Glycation End-products (RAGE). They will be using their top-up funding to explore the effectiveness of their RNA therapeutic in certain COPD disease sub-types that currently pose major challenges for current treatments.

Cincera Therapeutics is working to improve the lives of people living with fibrotic diseases, such as Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) by halting the fibrosis that causes morbidity and mortality. Initial CUREator funding supported preclinical safety and toxicology assessments of potential clinical candidates, with top-up funding allocated to continuing their molecular mechanism work, a critical clinical advancement step.

xCystence is developing and testing a new class of drugs as a potential therapy to treat Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), a common and potentially lethal, inherited human disease. xCystence used their first tranche of funding to create a company and develop and assess new, safe and effective drugs for PKD and using top- up financing to assess efficacy in adult-onset models of PKD in response to investor questions.

Minimising Antimicrobial Resistance Stream Awardees

• Kraken Coding
• NT
• Top up Funding Amount: $270,000
• Funding stream: Minimising AMR
• Therapeutic Area: Clinical Branches is a software platform that enables the development and sharing of structured clinical decision pathways to guide antimicrobial prescribing.

• Spritz-OM (research name not a company)
• WA
• Top up Funding Amount: $300,000
• Funding stream: Minimising AMR
• Therapeutic Area: Nasal therapy using ‘friendly’ bacteria to prevent childhood ear infections and minimise the use of antibiotics

Kraken Coding is developing Clinical Branches, a software platform for antimicrobial prescribing. Initial CUREator funding supported the development and TGA registration preparation of a Bayesian vancomycin area under the curve calculator for improved antibiotic precision dosing and additional pathways for antibiotic prescribing and selection tracking, with top-up funding allocated to improving remote and rural mobile point-of- care accessibility.

Spritz-OM is a research program based at The Kids Research Institute Australia which is developing a nasal probiotic therapy to prevent childhood ear infections and reduce the (over)use of antibiotics. Initial CUREator funding supported the development of a master cell bank for GMP manufacturing of the therapy for future clinical studies. Top up funding will develop assays to enable Phase 1 patient sample analysis and the generation of clinical proof-of-concept data for Phase II.